Monopsonies – dominant purchasers – need to be restrained as much as monopolies – dominant sellers. That is what pay equity ...

Four eighty-year-old books which are still vitally relevant today. Between 1942 and 1945, four refugees from Vienna each published a ground-breaking – seminal – book.* They left their country after ...

Should we pursue a ‘Golden Rule’ where any public borrowing for consumption is temporary? This columnist is a fiscal conservative who is cautious about government borrowing for public consumption. I ...

While many of the world’s Christian religions seem preoccupied with personal issues that Jesus, their founder, barely touched upon, they must engage with economic issues too. Robert Prevost, chose the ...

While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of the healthcare sector. Broadly, ...

Does the Autumn 2024 British budget point to a change in fiscal strategies? Many countries found their fiscal position was unsustainable, following the 2008 Global Financial Crash. Their public ...

A Rogernome Defends the Policies. One of the difficulties in making sense of what happened during the Rogernomics Stagnation from 1985 to 1993 is that professional economists sympathetic to its ...

Do we treat the government finances with the common sense that household’s manage theirs? It is a commonly held view that we should treat the government as if it is a prudent household. We don’t when ...

We should begin by properly acknowledging loss. The death of Act’s Port Waikato candidate, Neil Christensen, is a tragedy for his family and friends. Me tangi, kāpā ko te mate i te marama. However, ...

The budget runup is far from easy. Budget 2025 day is Thursday 22 May. About a month earlier in a normal year, the macroeconomic forecasts would be completed (the fiscal ones would still be tidying up ...

It is said that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That may be an exaggeration but an even better response is to point out economists do know the difference. They did ...